Chương 11: Chapter 10 - The War Front

"A mortal?" she asked.

"Mmm," he nodded, "a non-magic user. Here's what I don't get though." He studied here again like he was trying to work out a puzzle.

"You blow 11 silver on a sword, and don't even flinch when I tell you that you were cheated for 6 silver. You claim not to know anything about enchanted artifacts. So things don't add up. He rested his chin on his hand while he spoke.

"From all appearances, you seem to be a powerful mage, who is wealthy enough to not worry about money, and yet you don't know what country you're in, and you don't know what an enchanted artifact is. Very strange. But, I promised not to pry, so I won't."

"Thanks," she replied sheepishly.

"I really do need help getting back to the Central Kingdom though. I can pay you!" Dustin just nodded thoughtfully.

"How about this: I'll help get you back to Eshela on two conditions. First, I get to accompany you all the way to Portish. Second, you pay for all of our food and lodgings on the way." He held out his hand expectantly. She studied it for a minute, then nodded, and shook his hand.

"Deal! But why do you want to come all the way back with me?"

"I promised not to pry," he said with a sly smile, "but I never promised not to try and discover your secrets on my own. I'm curious about you, you're something of an enigma to me." Kiara chuckled. So that was his reason -- her story didn't add up, and he was curious to find out more.

"So when can we leave?" she asked. Dustin smiled.

"How about right now? I just need to grab a few things from my place."

"Perfect!" Kiara responded.

"I can wait for you here." * As they left the city, they walked back the way Kiara had come from, towards the battlefront. The sun was still high in the sky, and the air was warm. A gentle breeze tugged at her hair as they walked.

"I thought you said you'd only been in this city for a couple of weeks?" Kiara suddenly asked.

"But then you said you have a place there, and the innkeeper knew you by name. The barkeeper even said he's gonna start charging you rent with how much time you spend there!" Dustin laughed and nodded.

"All true. I'm a travelling merchant. I move between towns and cities, buying and selling things. Every few months I come back here though, and spend some time relaxing. It's been awhile since I've been to Eshela, it'll be good to get back there again." She noticed a wistful look in his eyes as he spoke, and wondered what that was about. She decided to pry a bit further.

"Are you from Eshela, originally?"

"Hmm," he replied noncommittally.

"That's a good question." But he never answered it, so Kiara let it drop. They walked for a few hours until Kiara started to hear the noise of a large group of people up ahead.

"That'll be the war camp," Dustin said.

"Let me do the talking, alright?" Kiara just nodded. * Dustin wasn't sure what to make of Shian. She had stood up to Benji yesterday, which immediately made him admire her character. Sometimes the strong would sit idly by while others were harassed, abused, or taken advantage of, but she had stepped in when it wasn't her fight. She was easy to talk to, and clearly highly intelligent. There were times over the past day when he'd forgotten he was talking to a powerful mage, and joked around with her very casually.

She had responded in kind, playfully hitting his arm. That's what really gave it away. She seemed to want to pretend that she wasn't a powerful mage for some odd reason that Dustin couldn't figure out, but she had failed to hold back her strength properly on a few of those recent arm smacks, and she was strong. His spiritual roots were pretty much non-existent, which meant he'd never had the chance to learn how to use magic at all. He knew the high level basics, but none of the details.

But he knew that magic users gained increased strength, which Shian clearly had. Why she wanted to hide it... that was her business, he would play along. The weird thing was that she was so dedicated to the act. She liked to play the lost country bumpkin, the maiden in distress that needed help, but he knew that wasn't really true. Her story didn't make sense; the things she said contradicted each other so obviously that she must be playing at some kind of game.

He wasn't sure yet what it was, but he planned on figuring it out sooner or later. In the meantime, he had earned himself a free trip to Eshela! He'd been meaning to get back there anyways, and Shian agreeing to finance the whole trip was the perfect excuse. Carrying merchandise across country lines was where the real money was at. Selling things that no one else could get their hands on meant you could charge a nice premium.

Not everyone had the connections that Dustin did, so he was one of the few that could make the trip between the two countries at war. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. As they approached the war camp from the rear, the security was pretty lax, but a guard still stopped them as they got close.

"Halt! No civilians, this is a war zone. Official business only." Dustin put on his best business face.

"Official business indeed. Is Captain Luther in, of the 53rd battalion?" The guard relaxed a bit.

"Ah, I see. The 53rd is about a mile west of here." He pointed for emphasis. Dustin nodded his thanks, and they made their way west, away from the guard. Two more guards stopped them as they travelled, but a quick repeat of the question kept them heading in the right direction. Eventually, they reached the right area. Dustin knew a few of the men in the 53rd battalion, but Luther was one of his main contacts in the Ventalian military. They both made a fair bit of coin with their little setup.

Dustin would acquire things that the soldiers really wanted, and sell them to Luther for a small profit, then Luther ran an unofficial black market here in the war camp.

"Dustin!" Luther called out to him as they walked up.

"Good to see you, but you're here earlier than I expected. Come inside!" He led them into his tent. Dustin chuckled once they were inside.

"Yeah, sorry, this isn't my usual business call, although I do have a few of the things you asked for." He pulled a few things out of his spatial storage ring. spatial storage rings were fairly expensive, as not many mages knew how to make them. Dustin's wasn't one of the really expensive ones, but it worked well enough for carrying a small amount of goods without having to haul them around yourself.

He wasn't able to recharge the ring's stored mana himself, but there were a few shops in the city that would do it for a fee. As he pulled Luther's items out of the ring, Shian's eyes went wide.

"I didn't know you could do that too!" He looked at her with a curious gaze.

"Do what?" Was she referring to his ring?

"I uh…" she started off, "umm… nevermind." She hurriedly looked away, suddenly very interested in the stitching on the tent flaps. Luther chuckled as he handed over some coin for the items.

"Who's this?" He asked Dustin.

"Luther, meet Shian. Shian, this is Luther." Dustin pointed to them both as he spoke.

"This is actually why I'm here early this time, Luth. Shian is trying to get into Eshela, so I offered to help her out. How's the atmosphere around here right now, think we can get through?" Luther scratched his chin as he thought for a moment.

"Mmm, tonight probably isn't good, we had a report of a few skirmishes come in this morning. I'd recommend you head out first thing in the morning so you can travel in the daylight. I can arrange an escort through the camp in the wee hours of the morning if you'd like. We have empty tents you can sleep in." Dustin nodded.

"The usual fee?" Luther smiled.

"You know it." Dustin turned to Shian.

"Give him 4 silver coins." She looked confused, and Luther laughed loudly.

"You're making the lady pay? Unbelievable, Dustin!" Dustin just chuckled in response and addressed Shian.

"You're paying for all of our travel expenses, right?" Realization dawned on her, and she nodded quickly. She reached into her pocket and pulled out 4 silver coins.

"Here you go," she said, handing them to Luther.

"Great!" Luther said.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Shian. Feel free to hang around the camp for a few hours, after dinner I'll show you which tent you can sleep in, and then I'll have Peter come get you around 4 tomorrow morning to escort you through the camp. * They spent the next few hours chatting with the soldiers in the camp. Kiara had the realization that Shian had likely either been part of this larger army a few days ago, or died fighting it. She wasn't sure which country Shian had belonged to.

Dustin had a deck of Royal Bluff cards in his storage ring, because of course he did. They played quite a few rounds with some of the soldiers, and Kiara learned to strategize a bit better as she played. She ended with three more bronze coins than she had started with, so overall not bad for her first time playing. Dinner was a simple stew, something that was easy to make in bulk to feed masses of troops. After dinner, some of the soldiers took to sparring before the sun went down.

One of them commented on Kiara's sword, and asked if she wanted to join in the sparring. She didn't really know anything about sparring, but she readily agreed. She wanted to learn how to use her new weapon. She lined up across from Jed, the soldier who had offered to spar with her. They both bowed slightly to each other, and the spar began. They kept their swords sheathed to avoid any bad injuries. Jed circled around her slowly at first, but when she didn't make a move he rushed in, trying for an easy victory.

Kiara's increased Mind and Strength stats gave her such an increase in speed and perception that his attacks were easy to avoid and deflect. After his third failed lunge, she swung back, smacking him on the arm with her sheathed sword. He flinched backward in pain and grabbed his arm.

"Ah, you win, you win! I didn't realize you were a mage. My deepest apologies, Lady Shian." He bowed deeply. A few heads turned at his declaration, and eyebrows shot up. She quickly waved her hands around to deflect the attention.

"No no, he's joking! Merely joking." She hurriedly spoke to Jed a bit more quietly, "I'm not… there's no need to call me Lady anything. It's just Shian." Jed bowed again, "Of course, Lady Shian, err… Shian." She really wanted to learn what she could about proper sword form. She decided to ask him.

"I'm actually not very good with the sword, I just bought it and was hoping to learn a little bit. Could you teach me some stuff?" That got him to relax a bit, and he perked up with a smile.

"I'd love to!" They spent the next hour going through basic sword stances and parrying moves that the military taught all of their sword foot soldiers. Kiara had a blast, and picked up the moves quite quickly. She wondered how much of her learning speed was due to her increased Mind stat. Eventually, Jed admitted that he wasn't a sword expert by any means, and that he'd only learned the sword basics when he'd joined the military.

He told her that a lot of large cities had places that offered sword classes if she was interested in learning more. As the sun set, Luther came by to show them to their tent. Dustin quickly curled up on one side, facing the tent wall, and fell asleep. Kiara laid on the other side and slowly drifted off to sleep as the war camp quieted down for the night. Just as promised, around 4 am a man named Peter came around and woke them from their rest.

Once they had left the tent, he began to quietly lead them through the sleeping war camp.